J.R.R Tolkien, a University of Oxford professor, wrote the Lord of the Rings series between 1937 and 1949 as a sequel to his first children’s fantasy novel, The Hobbit. The first in the trilogy, Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring is the second bestselling novel of all time with over 150 million copies sold. Tolkien originally intended for the series to be one single book but when he presented it to his publisher, it was decided that it would be best to split the series into three novels each containing 2 books.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J.R.R Tolkien is his pen name) is considered the father of modern fantasy or, more correctly, high fantasy. Although there had been fantasy novels prior to The Hobbit by other writers they were relatively unknown and not very successful. Tolkien’s career outside of teaching English Language and Literature, consisted of only two books and one trilogy- The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings series, and The Silmarillion. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945″ and Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning dead celebrity in 2009.